


Take One Step Back

by just_another_outcast



Series: the scenes we deserve (episode tags) [12]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Bro JT Tarmel, Dani Powell is a Good Friend, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e12 Internal Affairs, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I promise, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Papa Gil, Suicidal Thoughts, Tag to 1x12, Team as Family, coda to 1x12, honestly not as angsty as it sounds, it's actually super sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_outcast/pseuds/just_another_outcast
Summary: The incident with the ECT machine isn't something that Gil was going to just let go.  Malcolm almost did something he wouldn't be able to come back from, and his team is going to make sure it never happens again.(tag to 1x12, Internal Affairs)
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel
Series: the scenes we deserve (episode tags) [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782832
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	Take One Step Back

**Author's Note:**

> I promise this tag isn't as angsty as it sounds. I mean there is angst, but it feels more like fluff imo. But please pay attention to the tags anyway. The title comes from the song Put The Gun Down by Andy Black. I hope you enjoy, and please leave a review!!!

Gil left Malcolm's loft with a smile on his face, but the moment he shut the door, that smile fell. He left Malcolm alone because he knew that was what the kid needed, but everything inside Gil was telling him to run back in there, take the kid up in his arms, and never let go. Instead, he forced himself to walk down the stairs and out to his car, and go home. He needed to talk with both Dani and JT to plan their next move. There had to be something they could do to prove to Malcolm just how much he meant to them. But first, Gil would give himself a few minutes to break down.

No sooner had Gil locked his own door behind him than a single tear slipped down his face. He made his way to the couch on shaky legs, nearly collapsing as he finally allowed himself to think more and more on what had happened. Malcolm had nearly killed himself. On purpose. Sure, maybe he was only intending to shock himself until the hallucinations went away, but the kid clearly didn't care if it went beyond that.

Gil swallowed back a sob, his hands turning to fists. This was on par with the kid's most depressed years as a teen. What made this perhaps even worse was how unpredictable Malcolm was. At the worst times as a teen, Gil generally knew what to expect. But now, he had no idea. The kid would be fine one day, and a shell of himself the next. It had been steadily getting worse ever since returning to New York, but he still had plenty of days when all seemed fine. Even when Gil had been with Malcolm in his loft, although he was admitting to not being fine, he was stable. If Gil had even the slightest inkling that the kid was going to be a danger to himself, he never would've left him alone. Only the night before, Malcolm had been about to electrocute himself, maybe even kill himself, but the next day, he was completely stable. The unpredictability of it all was the worst part for Gil. How could he help the kid if he didn't even know where the kid was at mentally day to day?

Gil took a deep breath and relaxed back into the couch. Malcolm was okay. He hadn't electrocuted himself. He hadn't killed himself. He was still alive, he was okay, he was safe. Gil hadn't lost him. And with every breath in his body, Gil was going to make sure that he never did. But if he was going to accomplish that, then he needed to somehow show Malcolm just how important he was to his team. That was something that Gil had been trying to accomplish, at least on some level, since the kid was ten, and he'd only been marginally successful at best, as recent events clearly demonstrated.

Still, he had an idea. JT would hate it, and Dani definitely wasn't going to be very fond of it either, but Gil knew that for Malcolm, they were going to be willing to do anything.

...

What did retired people do? That was the question that Malcolm grappled with all morning. Even more broadly, what did people who didn't go to work every day do? It was with these questions that Malcolm realized that he really didn't have many hobbies. He enjoyed reading, but he'd read every book in his library at least once, some several times. Exercise and yoga were always fun, but getting sweaty while he still had a cast on just sounded truly horrific. He might have to just deal with it later, since there was no way that he was going to just not exercise the entire time he had the cast, but he was willing to put it off for a few more days at least. Sunshine was fantastic, but there was only so much he could do to play with a bird. He'd never had enough free time to get into many movies or TV shows, and besides, between getting kidnapped, spending a lot of time in the hospital, and working the deprogrammar case, Malcolm hadn't yet gotten a new TV. His mother had shattered his old one on Christmas Eve, and he hadn't had the time to get a new one yet. Maybe that's what he could do with his day.

But ordering a new TV online only took five minutes. He would've gone to some tech store to buy one himself, but he was still seeing his dead ten year old self at an unpredictable rate. Malcolm didn't want to have to deal with that and overzealous sales people at the same time.

So that left him flopping on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He'd managed a few fitful hours of sleep, but his particularly aggressive night terrors wouldn't allow him any more. Besides, Malcolm wasn't too keen on revisiting those dreams any time soon. He already saw his dead self in the middle of the day, and he thought about how easy it would be to end it all, even on accident, much more often than he knew was healthy. In his night terrors, it was always so much worse.

Still, Malcolm tried not to dwell on it. The more he thought about it, the worse it got. The voices in his mind would get louder, that little whisper in the back of his mind that his team was better off without him would grow to a roar that the whole world would be safer with him gone, so why didn't he just electrocute himself when he had the chance? As that voice grew louder, so did Malcolm. He would not let that voice win today. Every time he thought about the events of the past few days, about how he truly was a wreck and definitely not okay, about all of the weapons he owned and how it would be so easy to just-.

Every time the negative thoughts threatened to drown him, Malcolm would call out to Sunshine, his beautiful girl. She would fly around and land on his shoulder and sing to him, and the voices in his head would quiet down for a little bit. Each time the voices came back, each time he saw his dead self sitting next to him, Malcolm wanted to call Gil to come back more and more. But he couldn't do that to the man. Gil had much more important stuff to do than take care of Malcolm. He was a fully grown - technically, although his short stature wanted to disagree - adult man, and he didn't need someone looking after him twenty-four-seven. He could handle it on his own. No matter how much he thought about it, he wasn't actually going to harm himself. Malcolm was determined to get through the day as positively as he could.

But the voices just kept getting louder and louder, and try as he might, Malcolm could not ignore them anymore. What if they were right? The voices were all his own, anyway. True, he had visual hallucinations, and they spoke to him, but Malcolm didn't consider himself to be schizophrenic. The voices he heard in his mind were his own voice, telling him things that he'd thought of but tried again and again to push away because they were just too painful to dwell on. But controlling his own thoughts had never been easy, and it was only getting harder.

What if JT really did hate him? What if Dani was just pretending to care? What if Edrisa was just playing some twisted game with him? What if his mother and sister only cared out of obligation? What if Gil was just acting like he cared because Malcolm had saved his life twenty years earlier? What if loving a serial killer's son was just too burdensome a task for anyone to ever undertake?

Those thoughts, even though Malcolm knew on some level that they didn't make any sense upon further investigation of the evidence, became all he could think about. He took a deep breath and tried to center himself in the moment. He needed to calm down and relax, but how could he when he could turn around and see his dead self at any moment?

When Malcolm first heard the knock at the door, he thought that maybe he really had lost it, and was developing auditory hallucinations as well. But he got up from his place still flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and moved to the door. If someone was really there, it was someone who had a key, since they hadn't needed to be buzzed in, but the only people who had keys also never bothered knocking.

Hesitantly, Malcolm opened the door, but left the chain on, just in case. He breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing his team, but that relief was quickly replaced with confusion.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked. He quickly undid the chain and pulled the door wide open. "Do you need me for a new case? I can be ready in five minutes." He hadn't bothered to change out of his flannel pants and tee shirt, since he hadn't been planning on going anywhere, but he could have a suit and tie on in five minutes with Gil's help.

"There's no case, kid, we're just here to talk," Gil said.

"'Cause who doesn't love skippin' out on paperwork," JT added with a smile, but Malcolm could tell it was just a front. The detective was uncomfortable. What was going on?

Malcolm looked between Gil, JT, and Dani, noticing that each of them were holding a small box in their hands. Gil looked concerned, but he often looked concerned, so there wasn't anything too off about that. Dani kept biting her lips and wouldn't make anything more than fleeting eye contact. JT kept glancing around the loft, but Malcolm could tell it was more out of a desire to not engage in whatever was happening rather than an actual interest in where Malcolm lived.

"What's going on?" Malcolm asked. The pit in his stomach was growing with every passing moment. Gil put his hand on Malcolm's back and started gently leading him towards the kitchen, to sit on one of the bar stools. The three of them stood around him in a half circle, all displaying clear signs of discomfort. "Did something happen?"

"Malcolm, we're here because we care about you, and we need to make sure you know that," Gil said, resting his hand on Malcolm's shoulder.

Malcolm's eyes narrowed in confusion at both the candid way in which Gil was speaking and the use of his first name. When the team was around, it was always 'Bright'. Still, he let out a breath and smiled, as if it was definitely some joke.

"Well of course I know that," he claimed, despite the fact that only minutes earlier he'd been thinking the exact opposite.

"I'm not so sure you do," Dani said, a sad smile on her face. "Because if you did, then maybe you wouldn't have, uh, almost done that, the other night."

Oh. So that's what it was all about. The incident with the ECT machine. Malcolm bit his own lip and looked away. He knew there was no way that Gil was going to completely let it go that quickly. They may have used the incident to their advantage with the case, playing up certain aspects, but the incident itself was very real. Malcolm knew that if his gaze hadn't fallen to the trash can, where he then remembered the killer's meds, he most likely would have electrocuted himself, and maybe even died. Perhaps it was concerning that he didn't even care that he could've died. Maybe he was more messed up than he thought he was.

"That's why we're all here," she continued. "And that's why I got you this." Dani held out the small box to him, which he hesitantly took his steady hand. He would count it as a small victory that his hand wasn't shaking.

Glancing between the three of them, Malcolm balanced the small box on his cast, and took the top off. The air was immediately filled with the warm aroma of Earl Gray tea. The box was packed full of small packets of the tea, enough to last him for quite a while.

"So now, whenever things get to be a little too much, and you make yourself a cup of tea, you'll think of me, and you'll remember that I'm here for you, that I care about you," Dani said. She flashed that warm smile that always made Malcolm's heart melt a little bit, before blushing and looking away.

"Thanks," Malcolm replied, his voice low, almost a whisper. He had no idea how to respond to what was going on. His emotions were all over the place. On the one hand, he'd been trying so hard all day to think positive, but on the other hand, it hadn't been working. He was still seeing his dead self, and intrusive thoughts didn't become less intrusive just because you tried to ignore them. "That really means a lot," he said with a small smile as he set the tea down on the counter, and it was true. It did truly mean so much that Dani would do this for him. She knew him well enough to know that he often made himself Earl Gray tea when he was trying to calm himself down, and she'd gotten him more of it as a specific reminder of her in those times. Why would she do that if she didn't truly care about him? Why would she do that if she was just pretending? She wouldn't.

"Yeah, I, uh, kinda the same thing," JT said, looking anywhere but at Malcolm as he thrust the small box he was holding into Malcolm's hand. He'd stumbled over his words, but Malcolm could tell that his discomfort was born not out of malice, but an unease with emotional conversations. JT would only feel at all emotional if he cared as well.

Malcolm took another look at Gil before he took the lid off the box JT had handed him. Inside that box was a smaller box, but a wooden one, with a lock on it. There was no key.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It's a case," JT replied. "It's one you gotta solve. Inside that locked box is a slip of paper, and on that slip of paper is my name. If I know anything about you, it's that you can't leave a case until you know you have the right answer to every question. So next time you think about checkin' out on us, remember that you still gotta solve the case of my name." He crossed his arms and held his head high, exuding confidence that Malcolm knew the man didn't feel. "You've already proven that you won't cheat, since I know you could've looked up my real name at any time, and you still haven't. So I know you'll figure it out. And eventually, I'll give you the key." JT flashed a tiny key that he was holding in the palm of his hand, before depositing it in his pocket.

Malcolm couldn't help but smile. That was the closest JT had ever gotten to explicitly stating that he cared about him, but Malcolm knew that's what the gesture meant. JT wasn't big on words, and based on his verbal and body language, he wasn't big on gestures either. To do something this big, it meant that he had to care a great deal. He had to care a great deal more than Malcolm had thought he did.

Suddenly choked up, Malcolm replied with a soft, "thank you." He nodded, and looked right at JT, who finally looked back at him and gave him a smile and nod in reply. "I didn't know that you..." he trailed off, but hoped his meaning would remain clear.

"Yeah, bro," JT muttered, then looked away. "Of course I do." He really did care, and Malcolm was holding the proof in his hands. He set it down next to the Earl Gray tea once Gil cleared his throat.

"I had hoped that this would go without saying," Gil said. "But here is proof from me." He held out his own box, that smile on his face that always told Malcolm that everything was going to be okay.

Malcolm took it, balancing it on his cast like he did with the others, and took the lid off. Inside the small box was a keychain that Malcolm had seen more times than he could count. It was Gil's rabbit's foot. He looked up at the man in shock. There was no way that Gil would be willing to part with that.

"But this-"

"-Is something that I want you to have," Gil interrupted. His eyes were warm and sincere. "And so would Jackie."

Malcolm took the foot out of the box as if it were made of glass. He'd loved it as a child, much to his mother's chagrin, always asking Gil if he could have it, because he was desperately in need of a little good luck. Gil had always insisted that Malcolm didn't need something to bring him good luck, that he was an amazing kid and he would do great things all on his own, without the aid of a lucky charm. He couldn't believe that Gil would be willing to part with it, but Malcolm would definitely be carrying it with him wherever he went.

"You may not need a good luck charm, but you do need something to remind you that I'm here," Gil said. He cleared his throat again, likely because he wasn't used to being so candid and emotional with the whole team around. "Everyone knows you're like a son to me, kid, and I want you to have that, so you can remember how much you mean to me, to all of us. That's what this all is for. You need to know how much you mean to us, not just as a part of this team, but a part of this family."

"You really scared us," Dani chimed in. "If something happened to you..." she trailed off, shaking her head. She crossed her arms tight, as if she were cold, but Malcolm recognized it as a self-comforting gesture.

"It would be really bad," JT finished for her. "For all of us." He looked straight at Malcolm, and for the first time, he could actually see real care in his eyes. Malcolm had never seen that directed towards him before from JT.

"I don't know how else to show you how much we care," Gil said with a slight shrug. "This is real, kid." He rested his hand on Malcolm's shoulder again. "You are so much more than just a valuable asset to the NYPD. I don't even want to think about what it would do to me if I lost you. I can't lose you, kid, I just can't."

"I'm sorry," Malcolm choked out, trying to keep his voice steady. He clenched the rabbit's foot in his hand. "I just wanted it to stop, I just wanted it all to stop-"

"You don't need to apologize for how you feel," Dani interrupted. "You don't need to apologize for anything. We just need to be sure that you know you're not alone. You can come to us. Any of us. Always."

"Even me," JT muttered. "If you need to, or whatever."

"No matter what," Gil added. "No matter what any voice in your head says, no matter what your father says, no matter what anyone says, you are our family, and we don't give up on family." He slid his hand from Malcolm's shoulder to the back of his neck, his thumb rubbing idly up and down. With how often Gil did that exact motion, it was probably unconscious by that point. It was calming every single time.

Malcolm didn't know how they knew, but they did. They knew and they'd done exactly what they needed to to prove to every part of Malcolm's mind that he was wrong, that they did care. They cared so much and they didn't want anything to happen to him. Malcolm had physical proof of just how much they cared. Any possible argument that the darkest parts of his mind could come up with to convince him differently just wouldn't hold up when he smelled Earl Gray, tried to solve the second greatest mystery of his life, or felt the soft fur of the rabbit's foot in his pocket. The argument would be silenced in the face of the proof of his team's - his family's - love for him.

"I don't even know what say," Malcolm finally said, looking between the soft smiles on his team's faces.

"Just say you'll come to us," Dani said, stressing her words. "Say that you won't try to hold up the whole world by yourself. Say that you'll let us help you," she finished in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"Yeah, dude, no matter what you need, we're all here," JT added with a shrug, trying to keep up an appearance of being casual.

Gil nodded again, squeezing the back of Malcolm's neck in solidarity. "No matter what, kid."

"Okay," he replied. He made quick eye contact with all of them. "I'll remember that. I promise." Even when his mind tried to convince him it wasn't true, he would remember it. The three things sitting on the counter would force him to remember it, and that was entirely the point.

"Now come on, kid," Gil said, his voice much lighter and happier. "You're supposed to be getting ready to go on vacation, what are you doin' sitting around?"

Malcolm groaned, but couldn't hide the smile on his face. "And you're supposed to be at the precinct," he reminded them.

"Like JT said, who cares if we slack off on paperwork for a few hours," Gil replied with a shrug. "You're a bit more important than that."

"Besides," Dani added. "I think we all know you won't actually go on vacation unless we make plans for you," she said with a sardonic smile.

Malcolm gave a shrug and a smile, but they were definitely right.

"Dude, you should take the opportunity to take a vacation while you have it," JT said. "I wish I could go somewhere with Tally." He sighed and shook his head.

"I can pay for you guys to go somewhere," Malcolm immediately replied. Gil chuckled from above him and squeezed the back of his neck again.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," JT answered with a shake of his head. Dani was covering her mouth, clearly trying and failing to hide that she was laughing.

"No, really, I'd love to do that for you," Malcolm said. He was being serious too. What was the point of being wealthy if he couldn't help his friends?

"I'm sure you would, but it's fine, really," JT insisted. "We're tryin' to get you to go somewhere, remember?"

Malcolm exaggerated a sigh and a roll of his eyes as much as he could, but quickly broke down and smiled.

The next hour was spent with each member of the team giving Malcolm a vacation destination, Malcolm then shooting it down, and someone else then saying why their idea was a much better one. Malcolm laughed more in that hour than he had the entire month. His team was doing all they could to make him laugh, Malcolm knew that, but instead that making the laughter seem cheap or inauthentic, it made it mean so much more. His team was doing everything they could to prove to Malcolm that they did truly love him, and that meant the whole world to him. Somehow, he would repay them for all they'd done for him. Maybe he would find a way to convince them all to go to Disney World together or something like that. The whole trip would be on him, obviously, and that would probably be the hardest sell. Still, he would find a way to prove to them that he cared just as much.

Even after they had to leave, lest they be reprimanded for blowing off the whole day, Malcolm couldn't help but be happy. As soon as he saw his dead self again, he made a cup of Earl Gray and smiled. As soon as the little voice in the back of his head told him he'd never figure out what happened to the Girl in the Box, he looked over the little locked box containing JT's name. As soon as he heard his father's scathing words and gaslighting in his mind, he reached into his pocket and felt the rabbit's foot.

No matter what he was faced with, Malcolm could close his eyes, and know that he was loved. Even when everything got to be too much, Malcolm knew he had a family who loved him, and would never let him face it alone. He would never have to be alone again.


End file.
